


Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Sinned

by ScaryScarecrows



Series: Gaslights [15]
Category: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018)
Genre: Bruce harbors much guilt, Bruce is not having a fun time, Gen, Scarecrow is very entertained, creepy church, fear toxin 1880s style, light stabbing, lotta bodies, mentioned infant corpse but not for long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-12 18:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16000589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScaryScarecrows/pseuds/ScaryScarecrows
Summary: "They say the Devil can quote scripture."





	Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Sinned

**Author's Note:**

> Modern-day Crane, as I write him, has exactly zero patience for the religious folk, but he doesn’t actively seek them out. Most of the time. 1800s Crane, on the other hand…
> 
> In case it wasn’t obvious by now, he’s bitter and murderous and his views do not reflect mine.
> 
> NOTE: Gaslights!Scarecrow will appear in this year’s Halloween collection-tentatively titled ‘Unfounded Belief’-under the one-shot titled ‘Shatter Like Glass’, so if you’re enjoying these, keep an eye out.

The church doors open with an echoing _cr-ee-aa-k!_ that Bruce wishes he could silence. Inside, there is one hollowed-out pumpkin with a candle inside, sitting innocuously on the altar. Other than that, it’s dark. Maybe no one’s here…

No. No, he can see heads in the pews. Nobody turns to look at him and he’s not sure if that’s good or bad. Something feels wrong. He’s thinking it’s bad.

“They say the Devil can quote scripture.”

The voice is low and raspy, the acoustics of the building making it sound like it’s coming from everywhere at once. Bruce freezes, back to the door. The pumpkin isn’t giving out nearly enough light, and the flickering candle makes it impossible to tell if that was a shadow or something moving.

“They never wonder if the Devil can beg forgiveness.” A chuckle skips out of the darkness. Bruce props the door open with a stone and inches forward, towards the back pew. “Shall we find out?”

Bruce bends over to look at the nearest person. It was…once a woman…but her **face**. It’s twisted and stretched and her mouth has ripped a little at the corners. He only feels a little bad for being relieved that she’s dead.

**SLAM!**

He whips around. The doors have closed. Then what little light the pumpkin has to offer is extinguished, plunging the church into total darkness.

 ** _“I see you, little Bat,”_** a new voice hisses. **_“But you are walking blind, aren’t you?”_**

Not exactly. He can see vague shapes, at least.

“They did nothing to you.”

 ** _“They made me!”_** the voice shrieks, echoing from the high ceilings and the hard floors to make a cacophony of **_“MADE ME MADE ME MADE ME!”_** Bruce stills, sliding a specialized shuriken (Dick insists on calling them Batarangs, but he refuses to indulge in such nonsense) into his fingers. It’s a warm, comforting weight. **_“They did everything to me.”_**

All right. Maniac with a grudge. Bruce can work with this.

“Tell me,” he says, wishing his back had a wall behind it, rather than all this open space. “What did they do?”

“No.” Two voices? No, there’s similarities. One man, two voices. And the first one is now raspier than it was, strained from the shouting. Hrm. “I will do the mental dissecting here, Batman.”

Soft-spoken, perfect enunciation. Educated, then. That narrows the field a little, at least. Likely to have an abusive upbringing, heavy with religion. Sister Leslie would weep if she knew.

“You’re hiding from something, aren’t you?” The voice has moved closer. Bruce won’t lie, he’s unsettled that he can’t pinpoint the speaker. “Something that makes you **_weak_** …”

There.

He flings the shuriken into the blackness. If it hits its target, there’s no indication.

 ** _“What happened to your little flock?”_** Now that he’s listening, he can hear the effort it must take to speak. **_“Did they fly away?”_**

He’s glad, now, that he made the boys stay in. Jason and Tim have tangled with this man already, and he’d rather not go three for three. Besides, it’s…better…that they’re out of the way. His nightmares have been known to be violent, he’d never forgive himself if he turned on them in a panic.

“Leave them out of this,” he warns, making his way towards the now-extinguished pumpkin. “You’ll rue the day you were born if you lay a hand on them.”

**_“How about a scythe?”_ **

WHAT-

**SCHWING!**

It’s reflexes, and nothing more, that have him dropping and rolling just as sharp, curving metal sweeps over where his head had been. He kicks blindly behind him, hits nothing, and then-

-all is silent.

Breathing deeply, Bruce scurries towards the alter, feels around until his hand hits gourd, and lights the candle inside. The light doesn’t go nearly far enough, and he can’t be sure if those shadows are candlelight or Scarecrow.

He does wish, a bit, that Selina had come, but she’s working on the other side of town-a banker there has been…careless…with the money entrusted to him. Bruce is well aware that the man is likely to emerge from the encounter crying and with a brutally scratched face, but it can’t be helped.

 ** _“Afraid of the dark, little Bat?”_** He picks up the pumpkin and carries it into the pews. The light catches bits of the people there, jaws ripped or dislocated, eyes clawed out, tongues bitten clean through and fallen into laps. One woman’s rammed her little gold cross into her infant’s neck; the infant lies lifeless on the floor. **_“There’s a first time for everything…”_**

There. A flash of moving fabric. He gives no sign that he saw anything and keeps walking, ready to drop the pumpkin and duck again if need be.

**_“Boo.”_ **

But he was just-

Bruce whirls, pumpkin falling and fists flying, only to have his legs taken out from under him by the shaft of the scythe. He hits the ground, Bibles pressing against his back, and before he can get back up there’s a sword stabbing through armor and flesh and cape and pinning him to the floor by the arm.

Two. They _were_ working together.

He kicks out and struggles against the sword in his arm (it _burns_ it burns like Hellfire), but it only wobbles. Scarecrow chuckles above him and there’s the sound of a match being lit.

The one near his head is short and a woman, but that’s all he can tell-they’re grey. Grey cloak, grey dress, grey boots, with a hood hanging down to shadow their face. Scarecrow, on the other hand…

The burlap face and the scythe are the only things remotely related to his name. The rest of him is wrapped in a leather riding coat and thick black gloves. He’s tall, maybe taller than Bruce himself, and the black pits for eyes seem to glow in the matchlight.

 ** _“Are you afraid of fire, too?”_** He tilts his head exaggeratedly to the left. **_“Let’s find out!”_**

And then he drops the match.

It lands on Bruce’s cape and for a second-one beautiful second-he thinks it won’t catch. But then. Then there’s the unmistakable crackling of fabric taking flame, and at once, smoke begins to billow around them. Scarecrow is laughing, head thrown back (falling off it’s falling off his shoulders) and the bodies on the pews join him. The dropped infant pulls itself up and totters towards him, cross-chain swinging against its little body with every step it takes.

“Ba!” it babbles. “Ba! Ba! Ba! BA! BA! BA!”

 ** _“Welcome to my world, little Bat!”_** Scarecrow screams. Spiders fall from behind his teeth and into the fire. **_“Screaming won’t help…but you may as well do it anyway.”_**

He will not. This isn’t real. This is an illusion, hypnosis, a drug, _something._ It isn’t real.

“Ba! Ba! Ba!”

The infant’s hands grab his cowl and he jerks his head and tries to bat it away, finds that he can move his arm. He can get up.

Scarecrow and the Grey Lady are gone. The bodies on the pews are still chuckling, but he cannot help them. He…he has to…

“Why, Bruce?”

“Leslie?”

“Why weren’t you faster?” Blood. So much of it, covering her habit and her skin. “Why did you come if you weren’t going to help?”

“I tried,” he whispers. The fire eating at his cape seems to giggle mockingly. “I tried, I’m sorry-”

“WHERE WERE YOU?”

He’s never run from her before, but God help him, he runs now, stumbling through the church and out into the rain, clawing at his cape to get it off getitoffGETOFF.

Outside is lighter, but the streets are pitching under him and the voices in the church are still loud, so loud.

He needs to get home.

He needs…he needs to…

The cape, burned and half-ruined, finally falls from his neck and into a puddle, where it extinguishes with a soft _hiss!_ Bruce falls to his knees, breathing heavily, and tries to get up. Truly, he tries. But the street _leaps_ , hurling him facedown onto the cobblestones, and then he knows no more.

THE END


End file.
